


Woman of the Sea

by jhoom



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Selkies, historical setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 21:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jhoom/pseuds/jhoom
Summary: Mary is a selkie, and despite her family’s warnings, she develops a friendship with a fisherman’s son. If only she’d taken those warnings to heart...





	Woman of the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> So uhm... be gentle? This is pretty much my first time posting original work in this type of platform (or any, really, aside from some erotica). This is also the first selkie story I wrote, something to help me get to know the myths of selkies a little better. If you're not super familiar with selkie, this is a pretty traditional version of those myths. 
> 
> Please note the tags. I have tagged both non!con and violence because both take place within the story, although neither are "on screen." They're implied for sure, but I don't describe either. However, they're HUGE things so I felt the tags were necessary.
> 
> I would also like to thank [blue-reveries](https://blue-reveries.tumblr.com/) for beta reading this a million-ish years ago XD thank you so much <3
> 
> Please come visit to talk about selkies! I'm on tumblr as [@jhoomwrites](http://jhoomwrites.tumblr.com). 
> 
> Enjoy!

**** ** _selkie _ ** _ — mythical creature that has the form of a seal but can shed their skin to become a human; possess a selkie’s seal skin, and you possess them _

Of all the fisherman’s children, Mary liked Lukas best.

While the others wouldn’t dare wade out past the shallows, Lukas had an adventurous heart to match her own. He was more than happy to abandon the sandy shores and dive headfirst into the tide. As children, they grew up together exploring the reefs and stony crags offshore, though more often than not Mary played guide. He was always so fearless, always willing to chase her wherever she dared go. 

He wasn’t even afraid of  _ her _ . 

Not that he needed to be, not back then, but it didn’t stop the other villagers from eyeing her warily whenever they got sight of her swimming alongside their boats. Whether it was fear or respect, she never knew, but they carefully avoided her either way. Men tended to shy away from creatures that were  _ supposed _ to only exist in the bedtime stories they told their children. Seeing one such as herself in the real world terrified them, for if she existed, what other monsters did as well?

But not Lukas, never Lukas, and for that Mary almost loved him.

Every year, she’d eagerly wait for the frosty chill of winter to leave so that she’d have the chance to play with Lukas again. Year by year they grew, from the pudgy youths to gangly teenagers to fit young adults with bodies sleek and built especially for fighting the current. Lukas might only be a man, but with Mary’s help, he learned to swim nearly as well as she did. 

Whenever they’d play together, she always carefully laid out her skin before he came. It was grey and peppered with brown spots, not unlike the other seals who frequented these waters. Mary acquainted Lukas with all the secrets of the cove. Where the seals played and where the oysters were best and where the fish were most plentiful. No one knew the cove better than her, and no one else ever would, save Lukas.

And for that friendship and kindness, he betrayed her. 

While she played at being human with Lukas, it would soak up the sun and be plenty warm when she came to retrieve it hours later. As much as she trusted Lukas, she never let him see her take it off or put it on; there was power in a selkie’s skin, too much power to tempt a sweet boy like Lukas. 

That was the problem, she supposed. She always thought of him as that sweet boy she’d first met, but they were no longer children, rosy-cheeked and innocent. She should have known better, heeded the warnings her parents had told her about men and their greed. She’d truly never been able to move past the version of Lukas she’d first met more than a decade ago; the boy with the sandy hair and blue eyes who’d asked her to teach him how to swim.

There were plenty of days spent without Lukas’ company. He had mysterious, human things to tend to, and she valued the freedom that comes with not being held back by a companion not meant for the sea. 

Girl or seal, she was better suited to the briny water than he ever could be.

Sometimes, even alone, she liked to swim without her skin and feel the smooth stone underneath her feet and brush the sandy bottom with her fingers. She always left her skin in the same spot—a lonely rock jutting out of the water that was safe from the ocean spray. The other seals from her herd liked to sunbathe and hunt there, so it seemed a safer place than most. 

Until one day she climbed up out of the water and found her brothers and sisters gone. With increasing worry, she rushed to the top of the rock, her heart pounding in her chest and blood rushing in her ears. She imagined what she’d find in her mind’s eye, but still it made no sense to her when she found it to be true.

Her skin was gone.

_ Maybe the tide carried it out to sea and my siblings are fetching it for me, _ she thought, begged,  _ pleaded _ that it were so. But no, at least one of them would have waited behind to soothe her fears. If they were gone, her skin was gone as well.

What could have happened?

Frantic, she scoured every inch of the rock and dove beneath the waves, searching again and again in vain. Only when night started to fall did she abandon her search. Her human form might do her well during the day, but she did not trust the water after dark. 

Only the moon guided her when she finally reached the shore. 

Lukas found her the next morning, curled up in the grass and shivering. Treachery had never occurred to her, so she followed willingly when he invited her to his home. Why should she suspect him? They were friends after all. The very best of friends.

He lead her to his cottage, a small wooden thing overlooking the water, and helped her wash the sand from her hair. He offered her clothes, fed her dinner, did all he could to ease her fears and worries. She had nowhere else to go, and his offer to let her stay was much appreciated. It was a nice home after all, safer and warmer than most, and let her be close to the water. She could stay here at night, search for her skin by day, and all the while revel in Lukas’ continued company. It was a good plan.

And then Lukas had to go and say those damning words.

After a week of fruitless searching, Lukas gave in. He pulled her aside, sat her down on the bed they now shared, and held her hands as he looked her in the eyes. 

“You don’t have to keep looking for your skin.”

Goosebumps prickled along her arms. She’d never told Lukas what she was, not once, and here he spoke so plainly of it. Yes, she had assumed he’d known she wasn’t quite like him, but it was a very different thing to think her strange and to know her to be something other than human.

“What do you mean?” she said warily. She didn’t bother to challenge him on how he knew what she’d been looking for. Besides, if he understood, perhaps that would mean he would help her. “It’s my skin, of course I have to keep looking—”

“I didn’t want to make you choose. We can be together now.”

Not daring to put together what he meant, not yet, she said, “Lukas, I don’t understand.”

“I took your skin.” He even had the gall to  _ smile _ as he said it, the bastard. “That means you have to stay, right? It’s the only way I could get you to stay.”

As if it were that simple.

As if he were doing her a damned favor.

As if she didn’t want to tear this man apart.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “How did you find it?”

“You showed me everywhere around the cove except the rock on the western edge. Where else could it be?”

“How did you even  _ know _ —?”

“Mary,” he said sternly, then carefully placed a stray hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering in a caress. “The village, they talk about you. It’s obvious what you are.”

“Obvious?” she repeated. The secret she’d spent years guarding had apparently been  _ obvious _ to a boy who hadn’t even known not to bend his knees when he kicked. “Where is it? Where’s my skin?”

Lukas raised an eyebrow. “I can’t tell you that. I wanted to make this easy for you. I love you, and I know you love me, too. You’d never be able to pick between me and the sea, and now I’ve saved you from having to.”

Jerking away from him, she rose to her feet and glared down at him angrily. “I would  _ always _ choose the sea over you!”

He tsked. “You’re angry. I understand. It’s hard to leave your home, but you’ll come to see things my way, with time.”

“Angry?” Her blood boiled and she wanted to rip that self-satisfied look off his face. “I am  _ furious _ ! You  _ stole _ my  _ life _ ! There’s nothing here in this… this wooden  _ tomb _ that could ever tempt me to want to stay. I’d rather  _ die _ in the waters than live here with you!”

“You don’t mean that.” His voice was low and even, like he was soothing a spooked horse instead of confronting a woman whose life he’d ruined. “Come now, Mary. Be reasonable. You’re upset but with time, I think you’ll see this is for the best. This is a good life, certainly better than living poor and alone in the waters.” 

He took her hand, kissed the back of it, then went about his day.

How easy it was for him to dismiss her distress. To dismiss his own part in it.

Rage seethed through her, made her want to strangle the boy turned man who dared turn his back on her. It’d be so  _ easy _ , she thought as she watched him lean over to tend to the stew. She could do it. Knock him out and ransack the cottage until she found her skin—

But what if she didn’t find it? What then? Lukas would wake up and see her hateful glares for what they were. There’d be no surprising him, not after that. 

No, she’d have but one chance, and only one. She couldn’t afford to take it now.

It was then that she remembered what her parents had taught about hunting: be patient, stay calm, and don’t scare away the fish. Don’t do anything rash or you’d be going without dinner.

Mary could be patient. She would stay calm. She wouldn’t do anything rash.

She’d win this hunt.

~ ~ ~

The other women in the village were sympathetic. The men gave her a wide berth, but their wives and daughters took her in as one of their own. They taught her to cook and weave. They taught her their village traditions and helped her adjust to life trapped on the land. One woman especially, hair silver and skin soft and wrinkled, took Mary under her wing.

“My grandmother was like you,” she whispered to Mary, her hands still nimble despite a slight tremor in them as she worked her loom. Though her attention was surely fixed on Mary, her work never slowed for an instant; by contrast, Mary could never make her hands work that way, could never make anything but the most basic of patterns. “Born from the sea but trapped by my grandfather.”

“What happened to her?” She’d heard plenty of stories about selkie going missing, but none from the human perspective. It was always a horror, the sudden disappearance and the mystery of who had taken them. 

The woman sighed. “She drowned. She dove into the sea one day, picked a direction and swam until the ocean claimed her. They found her washed up on the shore, a smile on her face…” She clicked with her tongue and shook her head. “I know it’s hard, but there are other ways.”

Other ways?

Oh yes, yes there were.

“You needn’t worry about me,” Mary said with a wink. “I won’t go the same way your grandmother did.”

“Good,” the old woman said, clutching Mary’s hand in both of hers. “Don’t.”

True to her promise, she looked for her skin. It wasn’t in the cottage, she was sure of that much after thoroughly tearing apart every inch of it, but she couldn’t figure out  _ where _ it was. The unshakeable confidence she’d once had began to waver as the weeks passed into months and the months shifted into years. 

There were days she’d stand out on the cliffs overlooking the waves and watch them churn. She could see everything from up there, the children playing in the shallows, the fishing boats past the reefs, and her family dancing in the water just beyond reach… On those days, she was tempted by that example that woman’s grandmother had set; a brief end in the sea was surely better than this neverending hell on land. 

Then her son was born, and she couldn’t bear the idea of leaving him.

The little boy, he was perfect. She couldn’t even hold it against him that Lukas had fathered him, the child was sweet and innocent and worth living for. She doted on him. Lukas complained that she was coddling the boy too much, but she could not care less for his opinion on this matter or any other.

Tomas deserved everything she could give him, and so much more. 

She taught him to swim. It pained her to step into the salty water and know she would have to leave it at the end of the day, but she did it for him. Together they played in the rocks where his father had once bewitched her with a kind smile and pleasing words. If Tomas ever strayed too far, the seals looked after him and brought him back to shore. Her two families, both worlds together, it was almost good.

Almost.

But not nearly good enough.

~ ~ ~

Resignation had broken some of her spirit. She knew better how to make Fiskesuppe than she remembered how to find clams and fish herself. More and more of her true self slipped away each year, made her the human she appeared to be.

The gods bless Tomas for saving her.

The winter looked to be a cold one, and their home had not enough blankets. As always when they found their own supplies lacking, they crossed the village to Lukas’ father’s home. It was not much bigger than their own, but he lived alone and had turned hoarder in his old age. Mary suspected every outfit Lukas had ever worn as a boy was in one of these chests, for he’d not given away his son’s toys or old fishing nets.

While Mary searched the attic for the blankets they needed, Tomas wandered around the cluttered space. The toddler was mischievous, as all young pups were. Not content to merely look, he opened boxes and played with the knick knacks he found. 

“Mama! So soft!” he crowed happily as he held up her salvation in his chubby fingers.

Her skin.

It’d been so long, she barely recognized the grey and brown. The furry strands were shorter than she remembered, but just as soft as Tomas claimed. It was stiff from disuse but whole, not moth eaten or torn like some of the other clothes tucked away up here.

She clutched it tight and nearly wept. Five years she’d been trapped, and now her beautiful boy had done the one thing she never could. 

“Mary?” Lukas’ voice was distant, outside the house still but close. 

Without a word, she stuffed the skin into the nearest trunk. There was no time to give it the revenant care it deserved; she had to be quick. Tucked out of sight, she memorized where she’d hidden it and quickly wiped the tears from her eyes. 

Her hunt was almost over. She could do this.

“Mary—?”

“We’re up here.” She was proud of how steady her voice was. “I found the blankets. Help me carry them?”

It was painfully easy to pretend nothing was amiss. The years had made her good at it, had worn down her misery to a constant ache that she could hide as easily as her son hid fish hooks. 

“I was worried you’d both gotten lost up there,” Lukas teased as he kissed her cheek and mussed Tomas’ hair. She hated him all the more for his casual displays of affection. It was like a claim, exerting his ownership over her and their boy.

Not for much longer.

“Your father’s attic’s not so cluttered as all that. Come, let’s get home. The wind is starting to pick up.” 

She turned her back on Lukas and smiled.

~ ~ ~

The obvious solution was no longer the right one. She’d always planned on finding her skin and returning home, but the thought of leaving Tomas behind… 

She couldn’t do it, no matter how much her heart ached for the open sea.

She plotted for the next day, her mind constantly going over different scenarios until she stumbled upon the perfect one. Elegant, simple, and just.

The next time Lukas went to a neighboring village to trade, she endured his farewell kiss. She waved and watched as a good wife should until he’d passed out of sight. 

Then she sprung into action.

The walk to her father-in-law’s house had never felt longer. No one paid her any mind as she slipped inside with Tomas clinging to her chest. And who should care if she left with a bag? This was her family’s home, she was allowed. It wasn’t even uncommon.

The walk down to the shore was harder. It was too cold for swimming lessons, and she worried the villagers would notice something was amiss. A few men quirked their eyebrows at her, but they paid her no mind. Not when their wives shot her knowing looks and directed their attention elsewhere. 

The beach was abandoned. Only a few distant fishing boats stubbornly braved the cold, but not a person was in sight.

“Tomas,” she said as she kneeled beside the boy. He stared up at her with beautiful blue eyes. “Mama loves you so very, very much. But Mama can’t stay with you anymore. Papa did a bad thing, and now Mama has to make it right. Here.”

She unfolded her skin and wrapped it around him. She held her breath as she watched, as she prayed for the miracle she desperately needed. The skin shifted and took, transforming the human child into a spotted seal pup. 

“You find the seals, all right? You find the one with the brown patch over his eye. You remember him? He’s my uncle, he’ll care for you. He’ll make sure you’re safe.” She cradled his face in her hands, the whiskers tickling. “You  _ never _ trust any human, no matter how sweet and kind they might seem, and you  _ never _ lose the skin.”

She leaned forward and kissed his wet nose and held him tight one last time. A final hug and then a squeaky bark, then Tomas stumbled towards the waves. 

Her eyes prickled with unshed tears. As soon as he touched the water, he took to it like he’d been born for it. He swam away, as nimble as she ever was, and she knew he’d be fine.

His father, on the other hand, would not fair so well.

~ ~ ~

Lukas usually took a whole day when he traveled. There and back, it was too far a trek to make before dusk and the roads were too treacherous after dark. He’d leave the inn shortly after dawn and make his way back. Mary didn’t expect him until noon at least.

She could wait.

There were any number of chores she could do to keep her busy. Food to cook, clothing to wash and mend, the hearth to tend. She ignored them all, instead keeping vigil from the solid wooden rocking chair Lukas favored. His fishing knife was unwieldy, so different from the cooking knives she’d grown accustomed to, but it was sharp and would do the job better.

Perhaps she should run. She’d had an ample head start and the element of surprise. She doubted Lukas would realize something was horribly wrong until she’d hidden herself well and good halfway across the coast.

The truth was she didn’t want to hide. Too long she’d lived someone else’s life and played house with her captor. Running away would mean letting him off the hook.

He didn’t deserve such mercy. 

She  _ would _ take from Lukas what he’d taken from her.

Heavy footsteps approached the cottage. The door creaked as the door swung open, clattering loudly against the wall. Lukas wore a huge grin when he saw Mary, one that instantly disappeared when he saw her in his chair.

“Good day, Lukas.”

Lukas instantly froze. His frown exposed his confusion, his sense that something was wrong. His hesitation told her he had not a clue.

Good. She’d had no idea what was coming, either.

“Where’s Tomas?” he asked. His bag slipped off his shoulder.

“He’s swimming.”

“It’s nearly mid-winter.”

“The water’s not so cold.”

His frown deepened. “You never let him swim alone.”

“He can’t be a child forever. He’ll be fine. Besides, he’s not alone.”

“Your seal friends going to look out for him?” he scoffed.

“Yes. Yes, they will.”

“You talk in riddles today, love.” He gave a weak smile that did not reach his eyes. “Come, let’s find our boy. I’ve missed you both—”

Mary waited for him to step close enough. The edge of the rug, that was her goal. One foot, then two, and she leapt at him. Lukas, the fool, thought she meant to hug him. Arms open to catch her, the knife landed right in his gut. Eyes wide, he staggered to his knees. Still reaching for her, he fell backward with the knife still buried in him.

“Wha-what?”

“You stole my life,” she said calmly. She stepped forward and pulled the knife out. He gasped in pain and clutched feebly at the wound; it was too deep, there was no stopping the flow of blood. “I’ve waited a long time to steal yours.”

“But—” He gasped for air. “But our son—”

“He’ll be fine. I’ve made sure of it. Tomas is a smart boy and my family loves him so.”

“I don’t… you  _ love _ me…”

“I loved a little boy who liked to swim. Who enjoyed exploring the cove with me when the days were warm and the skies clear. He sang me songs and brought me treats, and made me think there was good in him. I don’t know who you are, but you haven’t been him in a long time.”

“You were  _ happy _ …”

“I made do.” She made a show of checking how sharp the blade was. It nicked the tip of her thumb and she smiled down at Lukas. “Now then. I think you owe me a skin…”

~ ~ ~

They’d come for her, she knew. Lukas’ screams wouldn’t go unanswered. The women might hold them off, buy her some time, but they’d come all the same. They’d come with sticks and pitchforks and all sorts of threats. They’d throw her in chains or off the cliff.

Let them come.

She was ready.


End file.
